If someone has committed one or more of the 5 heinous crimes in the past (e.g. killing parents, injuring a Buddha, etc.) that they deeply and sincerely regret but no one knows about, and they dream of being famous (for example recording songs, writing books and songs, recording vlogs and music videos, giving advice and performing) so that they can raise the money to build and donate to temples, stupas, Buddha statues, endorse trusted charities and animal shelters for a more humane world, and encourage Buddhism, would it be ok for them to take the opportunity to become famous? Would that be creating a false image of themselves to get praise and have people look up to them when they don't deserve it because they had done heinous crimes in the past?

Last edited by floatingbubbles07 on Wed Jul 26, 2017 10:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

floatingbubbles07 wrote:If someone has committed one or more of the 5 heinous crimes in the past (e.g. killing parents, injuring a Buddha, etc.) that they deeply and sincerely regret but no one knows about, and they dream of being famous (for example recording songs, writing books and songs, recording vlogs and music videos, giving advice and performing) so that they can raise the money to build and donate to temples, stupas, Buddha statues, endorse trusted charities and animal shelters for a more humane world, and encourage Buddhism, would it be ok for them to take the opportunity to become famous? Would that be creating a false image of themselves to get praise they don't deserve because they had done heinous crimes in the past?

Presumably the part of the five heinous crimes is theoretical but probably everyone committed them at a distant point in the past.

Fame is a result of merit (the right kind of merit). If the person has the right merit then there isn't anything they can do to keep them from becoming famous. But lots of people have enough merit to rise to some degree of fame.

On top of this, if one's intention is also meritorious and especially if they follow through and build stupas, sponsor teachings, etc. then this creates more merit.

"Even if you practice only for an hour a day with faith and inspiration, good qualities will steadily increase. Regular practice makes it easy to transform your mind. From seeing only relative truth, you will eventually reach a profound certainty in the meaning of absolute truth."
Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.

The thing is,you are connecting two things which have no direct connection to begin with. If you've done some awful thing in the past, that thing may come back to haunt you whether or not you ever become famous for something. We see this played out in the headlines every day. Some movie star or TV actor or musician it turns out did bad things in the past. There may be more of a likelihood that a famous person's past will be revealed publicly. There's a lot of money in that, in digging up dirt on famous people, for example.

Fame and fortune in themselves are not bad, as far as dharma practice goes. However, being attached to fame and fortune is a great pitfall. If you think they will bring a peaceful mind, or lasting happiness, then in essence you are taking refuge in that, relying on that. But since fame and fortune are purely conditional, as soon as the conditions change, they will possibly end.

There may also be some misunderstanding of karma here, and a misunderstanding of why something is regarded as negative action in Buddhism. Certainly, Buddha is not passing judgement. The notion of negative actions as being similar to the Judeo-Christian concept of "sin" is not accurate.

The reason why actions are considered heinous or grave or whatever is because, ultimately, committing them creates great obstacles to practice and to realization. For example, committing actions which forever leave one with a lifetime of guilt issues. Feelings of guilt arise in conflict with a mind which, in its natural state, is the experience of compassion. Furthermore, guilt feelings are a very strong type of self-attachment, or ego-attachment. Normally, we think of ego-clinging as only being, you know, thinking how great you are. But ego clinging is also feeling like what a terrible person you are, how you don't deserve to live, and so on. It's a kind of very negative self-indulgence, which still sees the self as an inherently solid, unchanging (and perhaps unchangeable) entity. If one is trying to walk the Buddhist path, all of this will stop you dead in your tracks. So any kind of action that carries strong negative consequences should be avoided.

One can still become famous and donate one's fame and fortune to building monasteries or whatever, and there is a lot of merit in that. But, if it is done with the idea that it will somehow wipe away the past, or that one will have "atoned" or whatever, that is still self-clinging. One is really only helping others in order to help oneself. It's not really much different than making a big donation to a temple in hopes of becoming rich or having a favorable rebirth. There is merit of course, because your actions will ultimately benefit countless beings. But the merit is small compared to giving without attachment, without expecting or hoping for anything in return. Giving without attachment is conducive to practice, to cutting through ego-clinging and guilt. It is enough to help a person to really free their mind, practice, and attain realization even though negative acts were comitted in the past.

Profile Picture: "The Fo Ming (Buddha Bright) Monk"
People on web forums sometime seem to be foaming at the mouth.

Whenever I hear questions like these I always ask myself: "What could possibly motivate somebody to ask something like this?"

It is just completely beyond me...

"My religion is not deceiving myself."Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde

The O.P is quite young and I hope they remember from previous exchanges that they have not committed any of the 5 henious crimes.

Floatingbubbles, You can spend your entire life terrified of your misinterpretations of your actions and what the texts actually say (despite others clarifying them for you) or you can just move on with your life and live virtuously and stop scaring yourself so much.